I think really you could come up for a good reason why korra gets lightbulb moments: she's to the physical bending realm what aang was to the spiritual side of being an avatar. Aang would have lightbulb spiritualism moments. Korra has that for her prodigal bending talent even as an avatar. She was hurling out three elements even as a little kiddo.

Anyway yeah the season finale, i think i vomited up like a bazillion words about that someplace. I will go dredge them up.

Here is what I come up with when I go back and really try to make sense of why I am disappointed with the ending: it comes down to the resolution of character and plot arcs hitting a brick wall of what appears to be a very artificial constraint.

Mako is stuck in a love triangle which has to be hammered out in a fraction of the time, so his character development abruptly stops and he becomes terrible. Asami is thrust off likewise and becomes little more than a spurned, disappointed point in a love triangle.

Bolin is even further hurled off to the wayside, all of his character development halts as well, and he becomes nothing but a series of comic-relief quotes abruptly injected into the story. His interaction on the ridge is a quintessential example of this; he appears, says something overly wacky to remind us all he is the wacky person, then, he literally removes himself off back into the background so as not to waste more time in the precious minutes that the show needs to take pretty much every issue and wrap it all up completely.

It is an overly and fittingly literal and direct version of what we realize we've been witnessing throughout the plot crunch at the end of the season: characters being distilled into an absolute barest and flattest minimum of their concept and personality in order to crunch them into a giant "and it all worked out" ó character arcs are abruptly ceased, taking pretty much the entirety of the season's buildup and having to dispose of most of the payoff just in order to desperately fit as much complete resolution into the finale as possible.

It's an abrupt and dissatisfying disposal. Korra's buddies get chumped. Amon and the equalists, the overarching threat and conflict driving the entire season, melt off as quickly as Noahtok's makeup and leave people wondering 'so that's it then? just, boom, done like that?'

The end result of these abrupt end woes shows this off in interesting ways; the characters which benefit the most from the structure of the finale are the ones which HAVE to have their essential introductions fit into the finale, and so they come off the best (see: iroh), and the characters most central to the story and Korra's life so far come off the worst. Mako is the ultimate loser, because in order to wrap HIS part up as fast as everything else, he has to devolve into a pretty unlikable character that people were bound to complain about.

As I understand it, this is not the way the show's makers would have wanted it; it's a network constraint due to waffling on how much they were willing to commit to for this new series. I can see how it ended up this way; it's a little bit sad to watch the central conflicts of the entire season just sort of be burned up in a fire sale, with a number of twists and turns that really honestly should have had entire episodes devoted to them. Korra's conflict with Amon in which she loses her bending but awakens her airbending should have been about three episodes from the end; entire episodes should have been devoted to her struggling with her loss of identity as the avatar but clinging desperately to the hope that she can be healed. The episode immediately afterwards should have been her with Tenzin in the shantytown under the city, going through a role-reversal, where Korra rightfully demands a lesson in airbending which has no room for patience or indirectness, and where Tenzin has to oblige and gain an insight into the way her brashness can be developed as an asset. There should have been an episode in which bei fong and her have to work together while communally dealing with the reality of being Amon's victims. Perhaps the Lieutenant could have been pivotal to Korra's central conquest and revelation of Amon as a foe. Korra's spiritual awakening could have at barest minimum been turned into something which does not require very clever specific reading to figure out in order to figure out why Aang is there to all but say "Congratulations! You have advanced your Spirit level! Press OK to continue." There are literally so many ways to have turned this into an extremely satisfying ending that still fits the requirements of "and it all turned out amazing enough that this works if we don't have a following season!"

Most importantly, Mako, Bolin, & co needed plenty of time to branch and arc their character development satisfactorily.

Perhaps overexplained? I really do feel that these are legitimate complaints and that I did not have unrealistic expectations. The season ending was just a complete abandonment and disservice to the very sorts of character and plot niceties which make the Avatar series worth caring about in the first place.

I think really you could come up for a good reason why korra gets lightbulb moments: she's to the physical bending realm what aang was to the spiritual side of being an avatar. Aang would have lightbulb spiritualism moments. Korra has that for her prodigal bending talent even as an avatar. She was hurling out three elements even as a little kiddo.

Anyway yeah the season finale, i think i vomited up like a bazillion words about that someplace. I will go dredge them up.

But, while they talk about her being a spiritual flop, she started having visions of Aang's life what, the episode before she made contact with the past Avatars? Then she made contact with the past Avatars in the course of like 30 seconds once she was trapped. Then she learned to energybend in even less time, which is supposed to be all about having an indomitable spirit that can resist corruption by the person you're bending, according to the lion turtle island thing. She can do anything, as long as she has to do it by the end of the episode._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

I liked the original Avatar so much I watched the whole series in a few days. I was so unimpressed with the new series I never finished book 1. Does it ever become less ridiculous (she makes horrible decisions and predictably bad things happen, but it all turns out okay because she's the Avatar)?_________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Thinking about it now, I did see the end of Book 1, which is how I figured it was so ridiculous ("because Avatar" is the answer to everything!). Also, it just occurred to me that this is the same problem I had with the Wheel of Time series. Everyone is stupid, assumes everyone else is out to get them including their friends, never explains anything to each other even when a few words might dispel a problem, and then in the end magic just makes it okay._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman